7 ways to play a tank in Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition

It’s easy to build a defensive character in Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition. Pick a class that has heavy armour proficiency, strap on a shield and the best armour you can afford, and place a good ability score into Constitution.

But it takes more than having high survivability to be a fully fledged Tank. The term has come to mean a character that can protect more vulnerable party members from harm. This can be done in a number of ways - for example by boosting your allies’ defences, preventing enemies from targeting your allies, or by making retaliatory attacks against those who do.

In Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition each “defender” class gained a unique tanking ability right from level 1. But this is not the case in 5th edition - many classes capable of high defence, such as the fighter or barbarian, do not have innate abilities that allow them to protect allies. Instead, someone wanting to play a tank will need to choose specific character options in order to do so.

In this article I’ll cover some of the best ways to make your character a tank, evaluate the abilities provided by these options, and discuss whether they are worth choosing.

Protection Fighting Style

The first two items on this list are character options that any character could feasibly choose to learn. You may decide to take both, or even to combine them with one of the specific subclasses discussed later in the article. But keep in mind that many of these abilities require you to take a reaction, and you may only take one reaction per round.

The Protection fighting style can be selected by fighters at level one, by paladins at level two, or by anyone else by taking the Fighting Initiate feat from Tasha’s Caudron of Everything. A character with the Protection fighting style can use their reaction to impose disadvantage on an attack made against an adjacent creature. You must be holding a shield to use the ability.

The Protection fighting style works best when you have a more vulnerable party member who will often be near you, such as a melee rogue or monk. It is useful when you are facing a single strong enemy that can only make one or two attacks per turn. It becomes less useful in situations when your opponents will be making many attacks per round, as you can only use the ability to protect against a single attack roll.

Sentinel Feat

The Sentinel feat does not have any prerequisites, so it can be chosen by any character provided that your Dungeon Master allows feats. When a character with this feat hits an opponent with an opportunity attack, the opponent stops moving and cannot move for the rest of their turn. Creatures provoke opportunity attacks when moving away from a character with the sentinel feat even if they take the disengage action.

These abilities allow you to lock down an opponent and keep them close to you. They are good for protecting archers and spellcasters who may be standing some distance behind you, as you can stop cunning enemies from breaking away from you and engaging those party members.

The third and final ability within the Sentinel feat allows you to use your reaction to make an attack against an adjacent opponent when they attack one of your allies. This is essentially a more aggressive version of the protection fighting style that discourages enemies from targeting characters other than you. But unlike the protection fighting style, your ally does not need to be standing next to you, meaning that you can use Sentinel when an enemy shoots a distant ally with a bow or makes a spell attack against them.

It's hard to deny that the Sentinel feat is a more effective choice than the Protection fighting style. While Protection will only defend any ally standing next to you, Sentinel offers three separate features that can help to protect both nearby and distant allies. If your party includes a delicate martial character, you might judge that it is more important to reduce the damage dealt to them than it is to score extra attacks against your opponent. But in any other circumstance, you will be better served taking the Sentinel feat and selecting a different fighting style - such as the Defence fighting style which increases your armour class by 1.

Ancestral Guardian Barbarian

The archetypal barbarian is an aggressive fighter who attacks recklessly while wearing little or no armour. This archetype is almost the antithesis of the heavy armoured tank who fights carefully to protect their allies. But there is one barbarian subclass that turns the primal warrior into an excellent tank - the Ancestral Guardian.

Like many barbarian sub-classes, the Ancestral Guardian augments the barbarian’s rage ability. When an ancestral guardian enters a rage, the spirits of their ancestors appear and aid the barbarian in battle, namely by distracting their opponents and protecting their allies.

At third level, when a raging ancestral guardian hits an opponent with an attack, that opponent has disadvantage on any attacks that don’t target the barbarian, until the start of the barbarian’s next turn. And if the opponent manages to hit their target regardless, the target has resistance to the damage of the attack. This ability only works on the first opponent that you hit however, so you can’t spread it on multiple opponents during the same round.

This is an excellent opening ability that places not one but two disincentives on attacking your vulnerable allies. And don’t forget that the barbarian will have resistance to bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage whenever they are raging. So whether the opponent decides to attack the barbarian or an ally, they will likely only be dealing half damage on the attack.

At sixth level you gain a third disincentive. When one of your allies is hit by an attack while you are raging, you can use your reaction to reduce the damage by 2d6, and these dice increase as you level up. From fourteenth level, the damage is not just negated, but reflected back at the opponent as well.

Together, these are a fantastic suite of abilities that make it very unappealing for opponents to attack your less steadfast allies, while significantly reducing their damage output if they do choose to do so. You will likely want to build your ancestral guardian differently to other types of barbarian - potentially prioritising dexterity and constitution over strength, or taking feats like Tough which further boost your survivability.

The core weakness of the Ancestral Guardian subclass is that all of its abilities require you to be in a rage in order to use them. A third level barbarian will be able to rage three times between long rests and each rage lasts for up to a minute. Depending on the type of campaign you are playing and how frequently you are able to rest, you may need to be careful about when you choose to trigger your rages - using them only against the most fearsome foes when your allies seriously need your protection.

Cavalier Fighter

The name Cavalier evokes images of a mounted soldier charging into battle. While the Cavalier subclass does give the fighter some bonuses to mounted combat, the main focus of the subclass is arguably its tanking abilities.

At third level the cavalier can mark an opponent when they hit with a melee attack. Until the end of your next turn, the mark has disadvantage on attacks that don’t target you. If a marked target does deal damage to someone else, you gain the ability to make a special attack against them on your next turn. This attack uses a bonus action, you have advantage on the attack roll and it deals additional damage equal to half your level. However, you can only make this attack a number of times equal to your strength modifier between rests.

This is a solid opening ability. Imposing disadvantage on your mark’s attacks gives a strong defensive bonus to your allies. This is one of the few abilities that allows you to successfully tank more than one opponent at a time - once you gain the ability to make multiple attacks per round you can use them all against different opponents to mark them all. The special bonus attack is furthermore a fantastic retaliation against anyone who does manage to land a hit despite disadvantage. It's frustrating that you can only make this attack a few times between short rests, but one would hope that marked enemies won’t successfully hit your allies very often. A larger issue with the ability is that it requires you to successfully hit an opponent in order to mark them. Even with an optimised character, there will be turns when you miss your opponent, leaving your allies vulnerable. Also, you need to stay within melee range of your targets in order to mark them - cunning opponents may decide to dash away from you and stay out of your range.

At seventh level you can use your reaction when an ally next to you is hit by an attack. You increase their AC by 1d8 for the attack, and grant them resistance to damage from the attack. You can use this a number of times between rests equal to your constitution modifier. This is essentially a better version of the protection fighting style, and a welcome addition to the subclass.

At tenth level you can make opportunity attacks against a creature that moves while within your reach, not just when they move out of your reach. Furthermore, creatures hit by your opportunity attacks cannot move for the rest of the round. Just as the previous ability improved on the protection fighting style, this ability imitates some aspects of the sentinel feat. Stopping opponents from moving out of your reach is of course useful for preventing them getting to your allies. But this ability is especially useful in making sure that you will be able to continuously mark dangerous opponents.

At fifteenth level you can attempt to knock a creature prone if you move at least 10 ft. directly before attacking it. Useful for locking down creatures who do manage to escape from your melee range against the odds.

Lastly at eighteenth level you can make one opportunity attack on every creature’s turn without using your reaction. This ability removes one of the biggest issues with opportunity attacks - namely that you can only make one per round. It also ensures that your reactions are freed up for protecting adjacent allies. This ability comes into effect very late in the game, after many campaigns will have finished, but it does make a high level cavalier the pinnacle of melee tanking.

Just like the Ancestral Guardian, the Cavalier subclass offers a brilliant range of abilities to protect the rest of the party. While the Cavalier has some abilities that are limited by the number of times they can be used between rests, it also has some unlimited abilities that will always be available to defend your allies.

Eldritch Knight Fighter

The Eldritch Knight is a fighter that can complement their martial abilities with a small amount of arcane magic. While it is possible to make an eldritch knight who throws around scorching rays and fireballs, one of the best ways to play an eldritch knight is to spend your spells on defensive buffs and reactions that will make your fighter even more enduring in close combat. Spells like Shield, Absorb Elements, Haste, Blur and Mirror Image can significantly increase the fighter’s survivability. And with clever use of two cantrips, an eldritch knight can not only take a load of hits, they can also make it significantly harder for monsters to harm weaker members of the party.

The two cantrips in question are Booming Blade and Lightning Lure, both of which were first published in the Sword Coast Adventure Guide and then reprinted in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. Booming Blade allows the fighter to make a weapon attack. If the attack hits, it deals normal weapon damage and extra thunder damage on top. If the creature moves before the fighter’s next turn, it takes even more thunder damage. Thus, moving away from the eldritch knight and towards softer party members becomes a very unappealing choice. Not only will they provoke an attack of opportunity, but they will take significant thunder damage as well.

Lightning Lure pulls an opponent up to two spaces towards the eldritch knight and inflicts lightning damage on them. This can be used to pull enemies out of melee combat with your allies, and into combat with you. Your allies can then use their turns to move away from the opponent without provoking an attack of opportunity or taking the disengage action.

Together, these two cantrips allow the eldritch knight to control the battlefield - pulling enemies off of allies with Lightning Lure and then locking them down with Booming Blade. While this strategy can be very effective, it does limit the eldritch knight’s damage output. Lightning Lure’s damage will almost always be lower than simply attacking, and there are certain levels when making two or three attacks will be more damaging than casing Booming Blade. So you will need to weigh using these cantrips against dealing more damage to remove monsters from the battlefield more quickly.

The Warcaster feat is an absolute must for an eldritch knight tank. It grants advantage on concentration checks and the ability to cast somatic spells with both hands full - two abilities that are beneficial for any melee spellcaster. But the real boon for the eldritch knight tank is the ability to use a cantrip in place of a weapon attack when taking an attack of opportunity. This means that if an opponent does provoke an attack of opportunity, you can hit them with a Booming Blade, and force them to take the extra damage if they do decide to continue their movement.

You could of course adopt this strategy with any other melee spellcaster that has access to these cantrips, such as the Hexblade Warlock or Bladesinger Wizard. But the Eldritch Knight is probably going to be the most effective class to tank with due to its heavy armour proficiency and d10 hit dice.

Overall the Eldritch Knight’s method of tanking is not as effective as the suite of abilities provided by the Ancestral Guardian or Cavalier, but does not rely on limited resources as much. You can cast Booming Blade and Lightning Lure as often as you like, while saving your spell slots to boost your defense against the toughest of opponents.

Oath of the Crown Paladin

Dressed in heavy armour and capable of self healing, the paladin feels like an excellent choice for a tank. All paladins will passively grant some protection to their nearby allies through their auras. At level six a paladin grants a bonus equal to their charisma modifier to any allies within 10 ft. At tenth level, the paladin grants immunity to being frightened to nearby allies. Some paladin subclasses grant additional aura benefits as well.

All paladins can also use the Compelled Duel spell to target one enemy. The enemy has disadvantage on attacks that do not target the paladin and must make a wisdom saving throw before moving more than 30 ft away from the paladin.

These are solid abilities that will allow any paladin to protect vulnerable allies in a pinch, provided they don’t give in to the temptation of spending all their spell slots on Divine Smite. Any paladin subclass with good defensive abilities can make a decent tank. But to maximize the Paladin’s tanking ability, you may choose to select one of two subclasses specifically designed for it: Oath of the Crown or Oath of Redemption.

At third level, a paladin that has taken the Oath of the Crown can use their channel divinity to issue a Champion’s Challenge. Each creature you choose within 30 ft of you must make a wisdom saving throw and if they fail, they cannot move more that 30 ft away from you until you are incapacitated.

This is similar to a mass champion’s challenge, but it lacks the crucial element of imposing disadvantage on attacks that don’t target the paladin. So while it may protect snipers hiding very far behind you, it will do nothing to help melee or mid-range characters within your 30ft bubble. And if you are fighting in a dungeon, many rooms are unlikely to be more than 30 square ft. total.

At seventh level you can use your reaction to take the damage in place of an ally when they are hit with an attack, provided they are within 5 ft of you. This is an excellent way of making sure that softer allies stay in the fight. But should not be used too liberally - the paladin may have more hit points than other characters but they still have their limits. That it only works on allies standing next to you is a significant limitation, meaning it will normally only be useful for protecting other martial characters who should have decent defences themselves.

Oath of Redemption Paladin

A paladin who has taken the Oath of Redemption can use their channel divinity as a reaction when an ally is hit with an attack. The attacker, who must be within 30 ft of the paladin, takes radiant damage equal to the amount of damage they dealt by the attack. They may make a wisdom saving throw to halve the damage.

At seventh level, the paladin gains an almost identical feature to their oath of the crown counterpart, allowing them to use their reaction to take damage in place of an ally. However there is an important difference - the ally may be within 10 ft rather than 5ft. This is still a short range, but it does open possibilities for the paladin to protect allies who are flanking with them, or ranged allies who are standing two squares behind the paladin.

Of the two options, the Oath of Redemption is the superior choice. The ability to force a powerful enemy to take damage equal to the damage they just dealt is a powerful retributive attack. It is much more useful than the Champion’s Challenge which has very situational use. And the Redemption level seven ability is just a straight upgrade of the Oath of the Crown’s version. The Oath of the Crown does not have anything else particularly notable to make up for these disadvantages.

However, you should not feel that in order to make a good tanking paladin, you must choose one of these two subclasses. Compared to the Barbarian and Fighter subclasses we have discussed, the paladin subclasses do not add as much to the character’s tanking ability. It is perfectly viable to use a different Paladin subclass with defensive benefits such as the Oath of Devotion or Oath of the Ancients, and combine it with clever use of the Compelled Duel spell and the Protection fighting style or Sentinel feat.